I’m a girl who loves numbers and analysis. Excel is my best friend. I love to pour over numbers and see what the trends have to tell me. When I was trying to get pregnant, I would stare and stare at my temperature charts willing them to tell me whether this was the month. What if I just alter this number a little? What if tomorrow’s temp is this? Or this? Playing around with the graphs until I had covered every possible scenario.
So it should come as no surprise that I also have the same fascination with the number on the scale and the various ways I can use that number. Again with the excel. What will my BMI be ten pounds form now? 20? Or worse, what could my weight be if I hadn’t screwed up July? How much could I realistically lose by the end of the year? It goes on and on.
As much as I love manipulating those numbers, the scale is actually not my friend. Even though I know better, I frequently let it ruin my day. I know all about fluctuations, etc but I still live and die by what I see on that digital read-out. I can eat a salty meal and get on the scale knowing it will be up and still, I am disappointed when I see the number.
I’m not one who necessarily believes that the number on the scale doesn’t matter. It does to an extent. You can tell yourself you are doing everything right but if the number on the scale is still 223 (in my case) you are still obese. That’s just the way it is. But, weight fluctuates. Even when it doesn’t make sense and the scale is only one way to gauge your weight and fitness, it shouldn’t be the judge, jury and executioner.
And so I’m giving the scale up for a while. At least, until I know that I have made some tangible results.
These pants are the next pair in my closet that will fit. I can zip them now but they really don’t fit and I won’t (by public decency laws) wear them out in public.
Clearly, I need to clean the mirror in my bathroom, but that’s a problem for another day.
I am going to use these pants as my barometer for when it is time to step on the scale again. When these pant fit, I will have obviously made some progress and I will weigh myself to see what my current number is. If this experiment works well, I will do the same thing with the next pair of pants in my “closet o’ many sizes.” I have enough clothes in a wide variety of sizes to keep this up all the way down to my goal weight and then some.
fat mom gets fit 